I for one don't like the idea that we're messing around and marketingsomething that we don't really understand.
As a biologist, I can tell you that we don't really understand any form of life, genetically modified or not. But that's not a reason to close down the supermarkets.
So then, the only way to continue evolving as a species is to drive our own evolution.
So what? The fact that evolution has replaced God as the origin of species does not turn evolution into God. The assumption that it is good to evolve needs to be questioned.
I think that the odds of this getting into the food chain are high. Like the funny post below pointed out, you know that some wise-guy will think that it would be awsome to dump a bunch of these into the local lake, and suddenly you can't fish in that lake anymore
These fish are already known not to survive in the wild. But what if they did? The chance of any one protein just randomly happening to be toxic to humans is close to zero. After all, humans blithely eat all sorts of creatures, generally with little ill effect. Perhaps if we make a special effort, we might be able to come up with a genetically modified food as dangerous as a peanut.
A lot of people using "average" televisions in the 20-to-27-inch range can't tell the difference between VCRs and DVDs when it comes to quality.
If that were true, DVDs would not have taken over so rapidly. In fact, everybody I know who had a 20-27" TV has exclaimed over the improved quality when they went to DVD.
Does this mean we'll be able to play HD-DVDs in current (non-HD) DVD players?
No, there's absolutely no chance that anybody will come up with a HD-DVD format that plays in current players. So when anybody talks about compatibility with present DVD, they are talking about present DVD disks.
It's a safe bet that any consumer next-generation DVD product will read older DVDs, even if they have to include a separate laser for that purpose. And with DVD players so cheap, they could probably do so at little extra cost.
But I wonder, with new developments, such as HD DVD on the horizon, how many people are going to hold of purchasing a DVD or DVD burner now
Regular DVD players are so cheap now that they are effectively disposable, so the prospect of a new (and initially costly) technology around the corner probably has little effect on current sales. On the other hand, I'm avoiding the new DVD video burners. They are still way too expensive, given that they will shortly be obsolete. Of course, if they drop under $100, and the media down to 50 cents a disk, I'll have to re-evaluate my decision.
Not really. He likes certain specific things that OS 9 did better--mainly those case where it did a better job of adhering to well-established usability standards. In almost every case, Tog's suggestions would yield an improvement in OS X, without necessarily making it look like OS 9.
As long as it's Apple doing it, we're all in favor of DRM schemes being promoted, and third party hardware vendors adopting them.
I think, rather, that people are appreciative of the fact that Apple managed to negotiate with the record companies a DRM system that was far more liberal than anybody imagined that the industry would accept: one that permits an unlimited number of unprotected CD copies, streaming to multiple (albeit limited) computers, and the ability to convert to unprotected format (with a slight sacrifice in quality) by burning and re-ripping.
It's the same reason why people bother to lock their windows, even though it's easy to break the glass. A lot of security measures are not intended to provide absolute protection, but just to make breaking in a bit more trouble to deflect the casual lawbreaker.
The bulbs are very reliable, and are not supposed to just randomly *poof*, like regular light bulbs... they are also guaranteed for 3-6 months against that eventuality.
Our DLP projector keeps track of bulb usage and shuts down when the bulb reaches its rated life whether it's still working or not. According to the manufacturer (NEC) this is because a bulb can damage the projector when it goes "poof." I don't know if this applies to other units.
I just got a nice LCD projector. Do yourself a favour, dump the TV, and get a 1200 lumen entry-level model for 1100 Euro's, and a good roll-up projection screen for another 200. You'll never even think about flat-panel TVs anymore
At least, not until the bulb burns out, and you find that replacements cost hundreds of dollars. If you watch a lot of TV, you might well end up spending the price of a flat-panel display over the life of the unit.
The existence of gravitational waves have been inferred (i.e. detected indirectly) from such things as the slowdown in the orbit of a pulsar in a binary system, implying that energy is being radiated away), but they have never detected directly.
Even pictures of our own moon tend to look a lot less impressive than in real life unless taken through a telephoto lens. The mechanisms that tend to exaggerate the subjective size of the moon don't seem to work so well in a photograph.
I'm not particularly concerned about colorization of Hubble images, because I know that for most of these objects, if I looked up into the sky with my unaided eye, I'd see at most a pale, colorless glow. Even a big telescope therefore produces a kind of unnatural image (this is what I might see if I had a really big eye). It's a small step from that to showing me what I'd see if my eye had different spectral sensitivity. On the other hand, as a techie, I like to know how the images I look at are derived.
In the case of Mars, I can at least imagine standing on the surface and viewing it with my own eyes, so I'd like to know what I'd see if I did that. But that doesn't mean that every Martian image should be a simulated natural light view.
It's long been speculated that Apple may some day bring OS X to the x86 platform.
Apple reportedly seriously considered this at one time, although if they had done so, it would probably have been for an x86-based Mac, and incompatible with Wintel systems. The idea made sense when Apple didn't have access to PowerPC processors that could compete with x86. But with the G5 now competitive, and strong prospects for future speed increases, the chance of an x86 port of OSX has diminished to near zero.
But companies much smaller than Apple, such as iRiver, do have the time and money to spend reaching me.
Yes, if your products can't compete with the big boys, the other strategy is to go after a niche market that is so so small that the big players don't care about it.
So I followed the link to their web site, clicked on the "Real One Player" link in the upper right hand corner, filled out the info. And then it downloaded Real Player 9.
Actually, an algorithm is *supposed* to be unpatentable regardless of the method used to run that algorithm. What would be patentable would be the design of the custom device which embodied the algorithm. That means that someone else can come along, and implement another device in a different way that does the same thing as yours but does not violate your patent.
That used to be the case, but is not any more, having been overturned by a 1981 Supreme Court decision. It sort of made sense back when "algorithms" tended to be abstract mathematics, with no real practical application. But as computer science and mathematics has advanced, we have reached a point where often the greatest novelty in an invention is not in the "embodiement," but rather in the algorithm that it embodies. Note that it is still possible to bypass such a patent by doing the same thing in a different way, where different way means "using a different algorithm."
From what I've seen, "by default deny" is still firmly in place. Patents initially always seem to come back with all sorts of ridiculous unrelated stuff identified as prior art, and the inventor have to patiently justify why each of them is not relevant to his own application, or withdraw the claims in dispute.
The additional patented features I would like to see them implement are
The invention allows the user to queue up programs from disk to be recorded on to video tape and to schedule the time that the programs are sent to the VCR
Longer programs can be scaled to fit onto smaller video tapes by speeding up the play speed or dropping frames
While TiVo has added a number of features over the years, they haven't improved on their primitive "record to VCR," feature, which provides no mechanism for queuing or scheduling, much less adjusting length.
The main question is then "Is pausing live TV and algorithm."
No, it is merely a concept, and in this bare format is almost certainly not patentable. TiVo's patent describes a detailed method for pausing live TV.
And if the patent is more specific than that, then the act of just making a machine that can do the same thing (using a different algorithm!!) would not be violating the patent.
This is correct. Patent lawyers typically advise their clients to make their patent as broad as possible, by listing every possible variation of the method (which is one reason why patents are so hard to read). So if a patent applicant is successful in imagining every possible way of accomplishing that particular task, the patent can be functionally equivalent to a patent on the concept. On the other hand, if a patent is excessively vague in an attempt to cover every possibility, it may not be granted or may not stand up. And there is always the possibility that a competitor will come up with some alternative method that the original applicant did not foresee.
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I for one don't like the idea that we're messing around and marketingsomething that we don't really understand.
As a biologist, I can tell you that we don't really understand any form of life, genetically modified or not. But that's not a reason to close down the supermarkets.
So then, the only way to continue evolving as a species is to drive our own evolution.
So what? The fact that evolution has replaced God as the origin of species does not turn evolution into God. The assumption that it is good to evolve needs to be questioned.
I think that the odds of this getting into the food chain are high. Like the funny post below pointed out, you know that some wise-guy will think that it would be awsome to dump a bunch of these into the local lake, and suddenly you can't fish in that lake anymore
These fish are already known not to survive in the wild. But what if they did? The chance of any one protein just randomly happening to be toxic to humans is close to zero. After all, humans blithely eat all sorts of creatures, generally with little ill effect. Perhaps if we make a special effort, we might be able to come up with a genetically modified food as dangerous as a peanut.
A lot of people using "average" televisions in the 20-to-27-inch range can't tell the difference between VCRs and DVDs when it comes to quality.
If that were true, DVDs would not have taken over so rapidly. In fact, everybody I know who had a 20-27" TV has exclaimed over the improved quality when they went to DVD.
Does this mean we'll be able to play HD-DVDs in current (non-HD) DVD players?
No, there's absolutely no chance that anybody will come up with a HD-DVD format that plays in current players. So when anybody talks about compatibility with present DVD, they are talking about present DVD disks.
BR-DVD = NOT backwards compatable with ANYTHING!
It's a safe bet that any consumer next-generation DVD product will read older DVDs, even if they have to include a separate laser for that purpose. And with DVD players so cheap, they could probably do so at little extra cost.
But I wonder, with new developments, such as HD DVD on the horizon, how many people are going to hold of purchasing a DVD or DVD burner now
Regular DVD players are so cheap now that they are effectively disposable, so the prospect of a new (and initially costly) technology around the corner probably has little effect on current sales. On the other hand, I'm avoiding the new DVD video burners. They are still way too expensive, given that they will shortly be obsolete. Of course, if they drop under $100, and the media down to 50 cents a disk, I'll have to re-evaluate my decision.
Not really. He likes certain specific things that OS 9 did better--mainly those case where it did a better job of adhering to well-established usability standards. In almost every case, Tog's suggestions would yield an improvement in OS X, without necessarily making it look like OS 9.
I think, rather, that people are appreciative of the fact that Apple managed to negotiate with the record companies a DRM system that was far more liberal than anybody imagined that the industry would accept: one that permits an unlimited number of unprotected CD copies, streaming to multiple (albeit limited) computers, and the ability to convert to unprotected format (with a slight sacrifice in quality) by burning and re-ripping.
It's the same reason why people bother to lock their windows, even though it's easy to break the glass. A lot of security measures are not intended to provide absolute protection, but just to make breaking in a bit more trouble to deflect the casual lawbreaker.
Professional interest? It's always interesting to see how somebody else has solved the same problems that you have.
Our DLP projector keeps track of bulb usage and shuts down when the bulb reaches its rated life whether it's still working or not. According to the manufacturer (NEC) this is because a bulb can damage the projector when it goes "poof." I don't know if this applies to other units.
At least, not until the bulb burns out, and you find that replacements cost hundreds of dollars. If you watch a lot of TV, you might well end up spending the price of a flat-panel display over the life of the unit.
Oops...that should have been "speed up in orbit," since they are spiraling in.
The existence of gravitational waves have been inferred (i.e. detected indirectly) from such things as the slowdown in the orbit of a pulsar in a binary system, implying that energy is being radiated away), but they have never detected directly.
Even pictures of our own moon tend to look a lot less impressive than in real life unless taken through a telephoto lens. The mechanisms that tend to exaggerate the subjective size of the moon don't seem to work so well in a photograph.
I'm not particularly concerned about colorization of Hubble images, because I know that for most of these objects, if I looked up into the sky with my unaided eye, I'd see at most a pale, colorless glow. Even a big telescope therefore produces a kind of unnatural image (this is what I might see if I had a really big eye). It's a small step from that to showing me what I'd see if my eye had different spectral sensitivity. On the other hand, as a techie, I like to know how the images I look at are derived.
In the case of Mars, I can at least imagine standing on the surface and viewing it with my own eyes, so I'd like to know what I'd see if I did that. But that doesn't mean that every Martian image should be a simulated natural light view.
Isn't that what Apple's business plan is?
When it comes to music players and music downloads, Apple is the big boy.
It's long been speculated that Apple may some day bring OS X to the x86 platform.
Apple reportedly seriously considered this at one time, although if they had done so, it would probably have been for an x86-based Mac, and incompatible with Wintel systems. The idea made sense when Apple didn't have access to PowerPC processors that could compete with x86. But with the G5 now competitive, and strong prospects for future speed increases, the chance of an x86 port of OSX has diminished to near zero.
But companies much smaller than Apple, such as iRiver, do have the time and money to spend reaching me.
Yes, if your products can't compete with the big boys, the other strategy is to go after a niche market that is so so small that the big players don't care about it.
It still is. Have you read about iPod battery replacement costs?
Yes, I've heard that it can amount to an outrageous 15 cents per day!
So I followed the link to their web site, clicked on the "Real One Player" link in the upper right hand corner, filled out the info. And then it downloaded Real Player 9.
That used to be the case, but is not any more, having been overturned by a 1981 Supreme Court decision. It sort of made sense back when "algorithms" tended to be abstract mathematics, with no real practical application. But as computer science and mathematics has advanced, we have reached a point where often the greatest novelty in an invention is not in the "embodiement," but rather in the algorithm that it embodies. Note that it is still possible to bypass such a patent by doing the same thing in a different way, where different way means "using a different algorithm."
From what I've seen, "by default deny" is still firmly in place. Patents initially always seem to come back with all sorts of ridiculous unrelated stuff identified as prior art, and the inventor have to patiently justify why each of them is not relevant to his own application, or withdraw the claims in dispute.
my Tivo has a menu item that says "Record to VCR"
The additional patented features I would like to see them implement are
The invention allows the user to queue up programs from disk to be recorded on to video tape and to schedule the time that the programs are sent to the VCR
Longer programs can be scaled to fit onto smaller video tapes by speeding up the play speed or dropping frames
While TiVo has added a number of features over the years, they haven't improved on their primitive "record to VCR," feature, which provides no mechanism for queuing or scheduling, much less adjusting length.
No, it is merely a concept, and in this bare format is almost certainly not patentable. TiVo's patent describes a detailed method for pausing live TV.
And if the patent is more specific than that, then the act of just making a machine that can do the same thing (using a different algorithm!!) would not be violating the patent.
This is correct. Patent lawyers typically advise their clients to make their patent as broad as possible, by listing every possible variation of the method (which is one reason why patents are so hard to read). So if a patent applicant is successful in imagining every possible way of accomplishing that particular task, the patent can be functionally equivalent to a patent on the concept. On the other hand, if a patent is excessively vague in an attempt to cover every possibility, it may not be granted or may not stand up. And there is always the possibility that a competitor will come up with some alternative method that the original applicant did not foresee.